


Mischief's Holiday

by Mercurie



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Regency, Awkward Flirting, F/M, Fluff, Humor, Loki Lies, Magic Tricks, Magic and Science, Pre-Canon, Wordcount: 5.000-10.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-10
Updated: 2015-01-10
Packaged: 2018-03-06 22:17:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3150278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mercurie/pseuds/Mercurie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a strange gentleman comes to the town of Old Bridge, only Jane Foster realizes he's not just a visiting Swedish baron.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mischief's Holiday

**Author's Note:**

> Written as part of the Lokane Deck the Halls exchange for startraveller776, who asked for a Regency/Victorian AU. I know 0 things about the Regency, so this is probably terribly inaccurate, but I had fun writing it. Happy belated holidays to you. :)
> 
> Thanks to subjunctive for the inspiration.

The circle of sky caught in the far end of Jane's telescope twinkled with stars. She squinted. Saturn shone bright this night. 

Was that...? Her hands tightened on the smooth brass. A spot of light slid past the ringed planet. A comet? A moon? Had she discovered a new moon of Saturn? It would be the first new satellite found since Mimas and Enceladus in 1789. Father would be fairly consumed by envy. The two of them had been engaged in a merry rivalry about who could make more discoveries for years, but thus far they'd always been neck and neck.

The spot of light grew. Curious. She leaned closer – as if that might help – half-aware that her mouth had fallen open in the way her mother had always said was most unbecoming of a young lady. What was it doing?

The light flared like a burst of rifle fire and shot through the night. 

Jane jumped and cried aloud, jerking the eye of her telescope to follow its arcing path. It seared its way through the night canopy for only a moment before crashing, extinguished, to earth on the neighbors' land. For an instant a rainbow afterimage burned on her eyelids – with the dark silhouette of a human form still within it.

She blinked, dazed. Something had fallen from the sky. _Someone._

Before she could stop to think, Jane was off running through the chilly winter night without her coat or bonnet. She and her father were on good terms with the Darcys; they oughtn't mind. Well, Mrs. Darcy might give her a scolding about the bonnet. 

It took her a good ten minutes to cross the mile from the Fosters' back step to the neighbors. When she arrived, panting and warm, a commotion was already underway. William and Hypatia Darcy supported an indistinct figure while their unmannerly daughter, Jane's friend Louise, stood watching with wide-eyed interest and idle hands. The grass crunched beneath Jane's feet and a faint smell of charcoal stained the air. 

"Jane?" Louise said. "What are you doing here?"

Whatever or whoever had crashed down from the sky, they had landed _right here_.

The figure straightened, one hand on each of the Darcys' shoulders. It was a man: a tall man with dark, flowing hair. He wore fine gentleman's clothes – buckskin breeches and a long-tailed coat whose buttons gleamed green in the moonlight – which, despite the singed earth, had not a speck of soot upon them. He looked quite human and not especially otherworldly. 

"Might I trouble you to tell me what realm this is?" he said. 

"Why, the realm of England, good sir," William Darcy said, astonished. 

"England?"

The moon laid cool hands on the stranger's face so that Jane could see the confusion writ upon it plain as day. She was suddenly certain, absolutely certain that it was this man she'd seen in the burst of light. 

"He fell from the sky!" she blurted out. "I just saw him! There was a brilliant light – I thought it was a moon at first, but moons don't move like that and they're not nearly so bright, or a comet but of course it wouldn't come straight at the Earth, or if it did we'd all be in a lot of trouble very quickly – "

"Jane!" Louise said, making meaningful motions with her eyebrows.

All-too-familiar expressions of exasperation were in fact sweeping over the entire Darcy family. 

"Miss Foster," Mr. Darcy said, "are you suggesting that this gentlemen here came from the moon?"

"No!" she protested, then paused. "Well. Perhaps? He came from somewhere!" She could hear her voice turn shrill. Nobody ever listened. How was it possible that they hadn't seen the enormous light? "Look, the earth is charred all around! Something has burned it, I'd swear to it."

The stranger chose this moment to fall into a half-swoon. He listed like a sinking ship onto Mrs. Darcy's shoulder, and a great scramble commenced to keep him upright. The Darcys turned him about and, with some effort, began to maneuver him with much concerned clucking towards their house, whose back door stood open and whose windows glowed with an inviting light. 

"Wait," Jane said, trailing after. "Shouldn't we ask who he is? This is an unprecedented occurrence! It could change our whole understanding of the universe!"

"Miss Foster," Mrs. Darcy huffed. "The gentlemen is clearly unwell. Whatever questions you have of him can wait."

Jane watched in frustration as the stranger disappeared into the Darcy home. She was sure that man had fallen to Earth in the light she'd seen. He was evidence. He was _proof_ of what she'd been telling people was possible for years: that there were other worlds inhabited by living beings, that the Earth was not the sum total of God's creation in the universe. Her proof was being spirited away before her eyes, and who knew where he might vanish to once he was recovered? She had a suspicion, based on his bewildered state and the fact that he'd chosen Old Bridge of all places to land, that he'd not come here on purpose.

She found Louise standing next to her, arms folded and lips pursed. "I think he looks more like a visitor from Venus myself."

"Oh, be quiet." Jane realized she still had her telescope in her hand. She must look a fright, red-faced and bonnetless as she was. No wonder everyone thought her half a lunatic. 

She turned and stomped back towards home. "I shall pay you a call tomorrow. Don't let him go anywhere!"

***

It was not tomorrow, but three days thence before she succeeded in inveigling herself into the Darcy household. She and Louise slipped with some effort past the Darcy parents, who frowned over their house guest like suspicious geese over a nestling, and soon stood whispering outside the library where they knew the visitor to be ensconced.

"Are you certain, Jane?"

"Louise – "

" _Darcy._ " Louise detested her Christian name and wished always to be called by her surname, a whim which few besides Jane ever indulged.

"Darcy. This man – if indeed he is a man – is not what he seems. He could be proof of all my theories! Please just warn me if someone should come."

Darcy, who had an adventurous spirit, made no further protest, and so Jane slipped into the room and shut the door behind her. 

The man who'd fallen from the sky stood by the crackling fire, one hand tracing the spine of a book. 

"Mr. Trolle?" she said. Darcy had told her he claimed to be called Godafrid Trolle and that he was a foreigner on holiday from Sweden who'd somehow become lost in the countryside. 

"Ah," he said in unaccented English, "the neighbor." He cut a fine figure indeed, tall and straight, though not particularly alien in appearance. He would have looked at home in any manor house in England. 

Still, Jane knew what she'd seen. She'd considered very carefully what to say.

"Mr. Trolle, I hope you won't think me improper. It is simply impossible for me to keep silent. Last night, as I was engaged in astronomical observations, I saw – "

"You saw me fall from the Bifrost during a journey between worlds," he said, perfectly casual.

"What?!" 

She'd expected denial. All her prepared arguments vanished from her mind. Her excitement and curiosity sharpened. What was a _Bifrost_? How did one fall off it? How could one travel between worlds?

"That's why you've come, isn't it?" he continued. "To accuse me of being a creature from another world."

"Well, perhaps _accuse_ is – But then it's true? You are not from Sweden?"

He laughed. He appeared quite at his ease, though now that she looked more closely, a bit worn around the edges. 

"I am not from Sweden, Miss Foster. Nor is my name Godafrid Trolle."

A feeling of unreality was creeping over her. "Not Trolle? Then what is it?"

"Loki," he said, pronouncing the two plain syllables as if their meaning and import should be obvious.

The name was a queer one. The name of a man from another world ought to be queer, she thought in a daze. 

"Loki," she said. "And I am Jane Foster, as you seem to know already. Where do you come from?"

"It's a place called Asgard. Very far from here."

Asgard. She was the first human soul to know the name of an alien world. The first to know with certainty that alien worlds existed. Let Mr. Dunlop chew on that! 

"I am all amazed," she stammered. "I hardly know what to think, Mr. Loki."

"Just Loki."

"Loki," she stumbled over the name. "Wherever you come from, you are a most welcome visitor. I've been trying to convince my colleagues in astronomy that it's possible for life to exist on other worlds for years. But you, sir, you can show them!"

"I could," said Loki, "but I won't."

"What?!" For the second time, Jane was stunned. "Well, then I shall! I certainly shall. So great a discovery cannot be hidden from the rest of mankind."

"Shall you? My gracious hosts told me quite the tale of you after they so kindly took me in. An eccentric, they said, though a harmless one. They seemed mortified that the local scatter-wit had accused me of being – how did Mr. Darcy put it – a 'moonman'."

"Oh!" This Loki was a gentleman of strange manners, and rough. She couldn't deny the strength of his argument; in fact, she realized she was stuck in a quandary. If she named him publicly a man from the stars and he pretended ignorance, surely not a soul would believe her! She would be quite disgraced. Some might even think her mad. 

"Why did you tell me this if you don't wish me to announce it?" Was she to come so close to vindication only to have it snatched away before her eyes?

"You're a stargazer, you said. An astronomer?"

She'd been asked the question many times before, usually in tones of condescension or mockery. A woman astronomer? It was sure to confuse her wits and no doubt make her an inattentive wife. Loki was the first person she'd met besides her father who actually seemed interested. Perhaps this Asgard had different views on such matters.

"I am," she said, drawing herself up. 

"Then you can be of assistance to me."

"Me?" What could a man with the ability to travel between worlds need from her?

"Since you've guessed my origin and have no chance of telling anyone and being taken seriously, I'll be candid with you. I did not come to this realm by design, Miss Foster. My traveling party was ambushed. A faction that favors my brother as heir to the throne thought to rid itself of his chief rival. As they know their favorite cannot prevail on merit, they sought to achieve their goal by trickery. They have separated me from my supporters and marooned me here on this primitive world."

"Heir to the throne?" she echoed faintly. Not only was he an alien, he was royalty? She had a sudden vision of Lucian of Samosata's vegetable wars on the moon. If only Loki were a talking vegetable, she'd have no trouble convincing anyone he was from another world.

"I am," he said in much the same tones she'd used moments ago.

She dropped an awkward curtsey, made worse by the fact that he looked quite as confused by the gesture as she felt. "Well, Prince Loki, how can I be of assistance to you?"

"You are, as you say, an astronomer. No doubt you've made many observations of the stars in this region over the years."

"I have many star charts, as well as tables of the phases of the moon, the movements of planets, that nature of thing, yes."

"I can return to my own realm in secret, without help from my comrades, but it's a delicate maneuver. Your charts would be helpful."

"Why – do you have a craft that can travel between the stars?" she exclaimed. 

Loki only smiled mysteriously. 

She considered. It would be low indeed to refuse a lost traveler the means of finding his way home. But if she gave him her charts, would he simply depart as quickly as he'd come, leaving her with this profound new knowledge – and no proof, no one to ever share it with? Instead of being welcomed into the scientific community, she would be even more isolated from it. 

"I cannot in good conscience contribute to your marooning, sir," she said. "But might you reconsider your firmness in the matter of secrecy? I am sure if you revealed yourself, you would be well-received by my countrymen. You would be doing me – and mankind itself – a great service."

"You desire the admiration of your peers? But no, I dare not call attention to my presence, Miss Foster, lest my brother's faction find me here undefended. What if I should offer you a different bargain? I possess much knowledge that would be of interest to you."

Then he did a marvelous thing. He reached into the fire and plucked out a roaring ball of flame. It floated over his hand, where it flowed and swirled in the perfect shape of the Sun, and singed him not. In all her life she had never seen anything that struck her heart such a hammer blow.

Darcy was pounding on the door and calling her name. She realized she'd shouted aloud. Her hands were pressed over her mouth. 

"Jane!" Darcy's voice sounded muffled through the heavy wood of the door. "Are you well? Someone's sure to have heard you!"

"I – I must go," Jane said. 

"Then until our next meeting," Loki said, casting the ball of fire back into the hearth as if it were nothing more than a golden bauble. "I trust it will be soon."

She barely heard his last words, so quickly did she flee the room.

***

Once again, however, more time passed than she intended. Jane had nigh on a fortnight to spend dwelling on what Loki had said and done. At times she wondered if she had not somehow imagined all she had seen, or if it was some trick. But the image of the flash of light that had deposited this strange visitor on Earth had burned itself into the quick of her mind. She could not convince herself it was anything but real. That in itself was a miracle: an alien man had come to Earth. She'd been right all along.

Meanwhile, word of the Darcys' mysterious house guest spread throughout all the neighboring countryside and the town of Old Bridge. He was reputed to be a rich foreigner, perhaps even a Swedish baron, who had become ill while touring in ––shire and been taken in by the fortunate Darcys. A stranger elicited no small amount of gossip in country circles, especially one who appeared so wealthy, exotic and, if rumor told it true, unmarried. In fact, so great was the fascination with the supposed Mr. Trolle that Jane could not find an opportunity to visit him again unseen, so numerous were the calls paid on the Darcy household.

They finally met again in the most unexpected place. Her father prevailed on her to attend the next ball at the Old Bridge assembly rooms, for he was much in favor of a certain young man who had shown some interest in courting Jane. For herself, Jane had no great love for Mr. Richards, who considered her enthusiasm for astronomy something to be tolerated rather than embraced, but she put on her best dress and went anyway for her father's sake. He was ever worried that she would grow to be a spinster with her head in the stars and she was loath to admit to him that it sounded a better fate than marriage to Mr. Richards.

When she arrived, the first thing she saw was Loki – Mr. Godafrid Trolle here, no doubt – surrounded by a gaggle of admiring ladies and no few fascinated gentlemen. 

"Why has _he_ come?" she whispered to Darcy as soon as they'd found each other. 

Darcy gave a slight shrug. "He wanted to. I suppose moonmen enjoy dancing as much as anyone."

"What has he been doing these past two weeks?" 

"Heaven knows. Whenever I try to engage him in conversation, he only asks after you."

"Does he?" Jane murmured, surprised by the rush of pleasure she felt. 

Loki had caught sight of her and was making his way towards them. 

"I claim the next dance, Miss Foster," he announced without ceremony when he reached them. 

It was hardly the most courteous request Jane had ever received, but one had to make allowances for moonmen, she supposed. They were away in the line before Jane could even reply.

"How vexing," she heard Darcy mutter behind her. Loki had not spared her a glance. 

"You didn't come back," Loki said. 

It was still difficult to believe that she was dancing with an alien in full view of the whole of Old Bridge's society.

"I could hardly make it through such a crowd! Besides, it wouldn't be seemly for me to be seen paying calls to a strange gentleman. We haven't even been properly introduced."

"Is that all? Then I'll come to you. Don't worry, no one will see me. That trick with the fire was but a taste of what I can do."

She was afire with curiosity. "But how? How do you work such wonders?"

"Magic," he said with a feral grin.

The dance took her away from him. She bobbed and spun and smiled with no scrap of attention left for her partners as the word _magic_ echoed in her head. 

At last they came together again. 

"There's no such thing as magic. All phenomena must have a rational explanation," she said. 

"Magic is perfectly rational, Miss Foster."

"Then how does it differ from science?"

"Science? Is that what you call it here?"

"Are you saying they're the same?" If they were, could she someday hold fire in her hands, too, if he showed her how it was done?

"The laws that govern the universe are the same in every realm. You humans simply haven't discovered them yet."

He ended the dance with a bow and she curtsied back, thinking dimly that he'd already picked up courtesies since their last meeting, not to speak of the steps to an English country dance. 

She'd intended to sit down and catch her breath, but before she could make it off the dance floor, Mr. Richards intercepted her.

"May I solicit the next dance?" 

"Oh!" she said, and there was a brief pause before she remembered to add, "Why, certainly. It would be my pleasure. Which one is it?"

"A cotillion."

"Cotillion," she said, wishing desperately that she could take back her assent. "Cotillion, cotillion." Mr. Richards' hands were rising to touch hers. He looked most unfortunately red-faced, short, and human. 

She was saved when Loki whisked her straight out of Mr. Richards' orbit and into his arms. He led her in something like the waltz, that scandalous new dance from London: one hand on her waist, the other on her palm, spinning them round and round the ballroom in wide arcs.

"What are you doing?" she cried, scrambling to keep up, sure her face must be flaming. Everyone must be staring.

"You looked in need of assistance."

"You'll scandalize the whole town!" But even as she said the words, she realized they rang out into silence. The ballroom spun around them, the men in their dark coats and the ladies in their bright frocks like so many flecks of ash and showers of sparks riding the night. Not a sound came from the assembled company and not a one of them looked towards where Loki and Jane danced a separate chaotic path through their glittering order. 

She saw something that brought her to a numb halt. In the midst of the knots of dancers she spied – herself. A perfect replica of herself moved through the steps across from Mr. Richards. In the next group of four danced another Loki, decorously giving all his attention to another partner and none at all to the false Jane. 

"Don't worry," the true Loki said in her ear. "They can't see or hear us, nor tell that the partners they dance with are only illusion."

"What _are_ you?" They stood frozen amidst the whirl of the soundless ball. 

"Much more than you know, Jane." He looked very well pleased. In her shock she hardly noticed the use of her Christian name. No wonder he had called Earth primitive; she couldn't come close to understanding how he did this. If all his people had such power, they might as well be gods compared to humanity. 

"Your brother," she said, "his faction – can they all work such magic as well?"

"My brother has not the wit or the patience for the craft. Brute force has always been his element."

"And if he finds you here?" Would that brute force be unleashed on Earth?

"You need not fear. I've hidden myself from his view, just as I've hidden us from your compatriots."

"Is that why your own friends haven't come for you, either?" No doubt he could signal to them this very instant – but not without drawing the dastardly brother's attention as well. He chose to remain marooned rather than endanger what must seem to him a barbaric backwater. Her heart thumped.

"You have a quick mind, Jane Foster. And as I'm unable to call for my rescue, I find myself wholly reliant on it."

She found she was still clasping his hand, and stepped hurriedly back. "How long will those images dance?" 

"All night, if I command them to."

"Then command them, and I'll help you now."

As she walked out of the assembly rooms and through the frost-laced streets of Old Bridge, alone except for this strangest of men, unchaperoned and unseen by anyone, she felt as if she was breaking down invisible bars that had hemmed her in all her life – sweeping them away like so many ancient cobwebs. Even her well-beloved English countryside looked new and eerie in the moonlight. She told herself Loki could well be dangerous. Whatever he was, whoever he was, he must surely be dangerous by virtue of the change he could bring alone. But she was not afraid, and a seed of an idea began to grow in her mind.

***

So began the most peculiar partnership she could have imagined. It seemed that Loki required information not only about the locations of heavenly bodies in space, but also over time. Jane had records of the motions of planets and stars and more ephemeral phenomena that went back years, and her father had even older ones. Night after night she crept down to the study the Fosters had dedicated to their astronomical work to find Loki already waiting.

She'd thought this would be a matter of poring over books by lamplight, but Loki instead chose a volume of observational records, laid it open on the big writing desk in the center of the room, and placed one hand upon it. No sooner did he touch it than there sprang from the pages miniature replicas of the astronomical events noted down – stars and comets, planets in retrograde, lunar eclipses. The model changed and shifted as he turned the pages.

All the worlds normally remote in the sky had descended to hang in the hushed air of her study, glittering and revolving like fireflies. The first night she nearly clapped her hands with delight; and Loki, in what she was beginning to recognize as a characteristic response, preened at the admiration. 

The partnership only grew better, for once she made sense of the floating models, she saw that Loki was adding things to them. Sometimes these were symbols meaningless to her, but other times she recognized new stars and worlds. When she looked into her records, she found that observations not made by herself or her father had been inked in. And her heart jumped, for some of them she might even be able to spy with a telescope if she could improve the resolution but a little more. 

As intoxicating as this new knowledge was, she was even more fascinated by its architect. Loki was of exceedingly good cheer – one would hardly have guessed that he was stranded alone on an unknown world, possibly still hunted by his enemies. She asked him endless questions about magic and Asgard and his family and his life and for all that he refused to announce himself to the human public, he seemed willing enough to tell her anything.

"How long did it take you master all these magical abilities?"

"Oh, several hundred years."

There followed a quite inconceivable admission of Loki's true age, which was 834. She'd made up her mind already to believe in all manner of impossible things, but this felt like a step too far, and she wondered if he was having a joke at her expense. Not only did he not look like an old man, he certainly didn't act like one.

"And are you accounted a great magician among your own people?"

"A sorcerer. And yes, I'm honored far and wide as without equal. Magic is greatly esteemed in Asgard."

"Do all your people practice it, then?"

"All have some ability, but few apply themselves. Much like your 'natural philosophers,' I would suppose."

She imagined the respectable Lord Kelvin brewing potions and waving his hands about like a two-penny spiritualist. What a strange world this Asgard must be.

"Why are your brother and his faction so very set against you?" she asked another night.

"My brother hungers for the power and adulation the throne would bring him. But though he's an arrogant hothead, he still has intelligence enough to realize that I am far more suited to rule than he is, and so he's envious."

She knew the spite of mediocre minds only too well. Too often had some gentlemen or dilettante astronomer sneered at her work when any fool could tell they didn't even understand it. 

"And is he quite so terribly tall as you?" she asked another time, laughingly, when the ache in her neck from always looking upwards grew vexing.

"Nearly," Loki said with an answering smile, "but not quite so terribly, no."

She heard much more of this brother, whom Loki painted in her imagination as a boorish, unintelligent fellow a good deal less noble and amiable than Loki himself. Though with everything Loki told her and everything she'd witnessed him do, it seemed unlikely the brother would ever be able to win the throne.

"And in all your eight hundred years, have you never taken a wife?" she finally asked one night. "There must be many beautiful ladies in the court of a prince." Her tone was light, but her heartbeat quickened as she spoke.

Loki had brought into shimmering life a portion of the sky around the North Star. Between the stars floated half-transparent clouds of dust that surely no telescope of hers could ever have spied. A comet flashed through the miniature and she gasped, just as enchanted as the first time. 

"Oh, beauty isn't enough to interest me, Jane."

"Then what does interest you?"

"The crown, my dear, and nothing less." He sent a cavalcade of stars dancing around her head with a smile.

For unfathomable reasons, she was disappointed. 

"And you?" he asked. "Have you never found a suitor to your liking?"

She snorted and said gloomily, "I've always thought it unjust that marriage is considered a necessity for women. If only one could marry the stars instead of a husband."

"One sounds almost as perilous as the other." 

"Well, they both expect everything to revolve around them."

Loki laughed. "Your husband will need the armor of a bilgesnipe against that tongue of yours."

She blushed, and saw that he noticed. A smile tugged again at his lips. She felt certain that he was laughing at her, and yet she didn't quite mind.

"And just what is a bulgespine?" she asked tartly.

"A _bilgesnipe._ " 

After which the conversation proceeded along the lines of the slaying of monstrous beasts and the medical uses of antler slime. 

She lost much sleep during these clandestine nights, and was listless during the day. Her father worried and came to stroke her forehead when she lay late abed. She submitted to this cosseting without complaint, for when she looked at him she could not help but feel a twinge of guilt.

For she had decided that night at the ball that if she couldn't have proof that her theories were true, she would certainly do her best to experience another world herself. With the opportunity at hand – an opportunity that possibly no other human being would have again, much less Jane herself – she could not let it pass, despite any danger that might befall her person or reputation. 

So she watched carefully all the while as Loki built his models, observing what he added to her records and gathering up the dollops of information he let fall like precious gems. And gradually, as the nights passed, she thought she was gaining a glimmer of understanding of what he was hoping to do.

***

Good things, of course, cannot last. One night she crept into the study to find it empty. Loki had not written a note, but he'd left her a gift: in a glass jar, an exquisite replica of the sun like he'd made at their first meeting, ornamented with ribbons of fire and dark speckles such as one never saw on the real sun as it sailed across the sky. She knew he meant it as a farewell.

She didn't hesitate or stop to gather any manner of supplies, but ran directly out into the night. The cool winter air caressed her hot face. 

He'd been looking for alignments. For patterns. He'd been building his models of the sky and watching them change night after night – and drawing over them, she had finally realized, a bright line that represented the trajectory of the burst of light that had deposited him on Earth. 

Somehow, he was planning to retrace his steps. He meant to activate the residual energy of the Bifrost, whatever it was, to transport himself home. If the stars were right and the phase of the moon was right and God knew what else was in place, he could resurrect the ghost of that mysterious road between worlds. She had no idea how it was possible, but she understood one thing very well: it meant he would have to depart from the spot where he'd landed.

She nearly arrived too late. She came upon him in the Darcys' garden in the dead center of the charcoal patch he'd burned into the grass by his arrival. He had his arms raised as if supplicating the clouds for rain, but it wasn't water he was summoning. 

Jane crouched low to the ground. He was too absorbed in his work to notice her. The full moon hung above him and its light seemed to thicken, building and quickening not only around Loki but also along the invisible path along which he'd fallen. In an instant it brightened to a painful flash, swallowing him up whole. Jane didn't stop to think.

She hurled herself into it.

The journey was a far cry from a horse and carriage. When asked later, she could only say it was rather like swimming downwards through a waterfall, only unimaginably rapid and windy instead of damp. She could hear someone shouting, but it seemed to come from very far away, far behind the rushing sound of the pillar that carried her in its heart. And through the hazy wall of the Bifrost, she could make out the stars passing her by at a speed that left her breathless.

She emerged into a marvelous place. A beautiful golden dome soared above her head. It opened onto a bridge over a roaring sea, and far in the distance shone buildings unlike any she'd ever seen. 

"Oh," Loki said, staring down at her in plain shock. " _Damn._ "

She was holding onto his sleeve, which was no longer attached to the elegant topcoat she knew, but to a coat of leather that looked fearsome and battle-ready. 

"Is this Asgard?" she exclaimed. "It must be!"

"Loki!"

They were not alone in the dome. A party of men and one woman stood gathered but a few feet away, all of them very tall and fierce in appearance. They looked exceedingly surprised. 

A man who resembled a lion in human form strode over to them, his arms outstretched in greeting.

"Brother! We've been searching for you day and night! Have you fared very ill? Heimdall could not see you no matter how he tried. Mother is beside herself with worry."

Brother?

" _This_ is the envious brother?" Jane said.

"Ah..." Loki gave an awkward laugh. "Well, you see, when I said that – "

"Who names Thor envious?" Loki's brother said, cheerfully dismissive. "I hope you haven't been hiding on purpose, Loki. Everyone falls off the Bifrost from time to time, it's nothing to be ashamed of."

" _Fell_? You mean he wasn't ambushed?" Jane squeaked. Next it would come out that he wasn't a prince, either!

Thor looked her up and down. "Have you brought back a mortal? You know Father doesn't allow mortals."

"Then I guess I'd better send her back where she came from immediately, hadn't I?"

"Well, there's no need to be so – "

But Loki had already hauled her gracelessly to a gate in the side of the dome. A by now familiar light was gathering in its depths. 

"Wait! I haven't seen hardly anything yet!" Brothers be damned, _princes_ be damned, she wanted to know what those shiny towers were.

"Thank you for a most enjoyable holiday, Jane Foster. Perhaps someday I'll be able to return the favor. Until then – "

Before she could protest, he kissed her with a flourish. She had never kissed anyone before, so she couldn't compare it to a human – but it was certainly very nice. So nice in fact that she quite forgot where she was or what she was doing until she found herself tipped through the brilliant gate right back into the waterfall of light. 

It was a vaster storm that bore her this time, and she was alone. This was all to the good, however, as no one could hear her scream improprieties. She could not even hear herself, so loud was the roar of the Bifrost. The dissembler! He could at least have let her stay a little longer after she'd had the generosity to believe in his boastful stories!

In a blinding whirl, the waterfall set her feet on the ground. She lowered her hands from where they'd had some vague thought of shielding her eyes. 

She was standing in the Darcys' garden. All three Darcys gaped at her, as did her father, the Partridges, the Lenthalls, and quite a crowd of other neighbors.

"Jane!" her father exclaimed. "My heavens! Where have you come from?" He peered around wildly at the sky.

"She just appeared out of nowhere like, like – " A voice called.

"Magic," another voice finished in a whisper. 

"Someone ought to inform the constable!"

"It's inconceivable! Incredible! Did you see it, Martha? I can scarcely believe my eyes!"

A crowd of faces swirled around her, hands reaching out to touch her as if to make certain she was not only some vision or hallucination.

Jane laughed. The whole lot of them had seen her appear out of a flash of light in the sky. And all around her stretched a medallion of burnt grass in a spiraling design traced by no human hand.

Proof positive.


End file.
